TV We Unashamedly Watched This Week: The Big Reunion

Cargo pants and crop tops ahoy, the 90s are back. And not in a good way.

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by Daisy Buchanan |
Published on

Big Reunion 2014 has quite the line up. I am very excited about seeing Blazin' Squad's Kenzie bond with Kavana, and I'm really hoping that Gareth Gates and Dane Bowers will get involved in a deep and meaningful conversation that ends with the former comparing his willy with the latter's foot, while making an allusion to the geography of Jordan. But I'm really looking forward to seeing post Spice Girl ladyband Girl Thing, because I have never, ever heard of them. I remember every act that performed on CD and Live And Kicking when I was a tiny child. I thought I knew about every act that had ever been 'wacky' in public for money, while wearing multi coloured denim. So if Girl Thing have given me total pop amnesia, they must have been quite thrillingly awful.

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The Girls have actually achieved more fame separately than together. Jodi found success as "Debbie off Hollyoaks" and was in Louis Walsh's short lived group, Wonderland. I went to a Wonderland party once, and they had proper burgers instead of mini burgers, so I'm already feeling quite well disposed towards Jodi. Anika Bostelaar has appeared on Dutch TV and released a single called King Of The Dancefloor in 2007.

The problem was that the girls were less of a band, more of a collection of people who should have stayed trapped behind a transparent panel that read "In case of lost or injured Spice Girls, break glass with the hammer provided". They were all given Spicy monikers, but rather than simple personality descriptors like 'Sporty' or 'Posh', the names had a faintly pejorative feel. For example, Anika was "the foreign one".

Despite racking up top 15 hits in Australia, Girl Thing disbanded amidst pregnancies, fights and affairs. They weren't supposed to have boyfriends, so when one of them disobeyed and had a love note from a studio engineer intercepted by the others, they didn't sit around the kitchen table for a frank chat. They kicked each other's faces in. I knew this was going to be good. Filmed from her home in California, Nikki reveals. she's very nervous about bringing the band back together. and her husband rudely points out "it's not like the Beatles reforming." Looks like we've found our Yoko.

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Disappointingly, 3T, AKA the once beautiful Taryll, Taj and TJ don't get much coverage. "They were Michael Jackson's nephews!" the VO tells us unhelpfully. "Michael Jackson who died." We stay with the boys long enough to find out that yes, they were very sad when Michael Jackson died, and did we know that he was their uncle? And then we're onto Damage.

 

Damage are best known for the fact that 80 per cent of them aren't married to Emma Bunton, so it's nice to come away with some new Damage info, and here it is. They once spent thirteen grand a month on cabs. In the nineties. When a round at the Met Bar was about twenty quid and you could get your hair cut for a shilling, as long as you didn't mind stripy highlights and a centre parting. Other than that, they were all pretty well behaved apart from Coree, who spent everyone's money on drugs and then buggered off in a cloud of angry spittle. "If we were all together again, we'd need security," we're warned. Eeek! Let's hope ITV2 have made provisions beyond getting Andi Peters telling everyone to calm down. Most of the boys are now adorable DILFs with a clutch of cute kids in tow. "I can't believe I'm here with my wife and two kids, skiing, in the snow!" says Jade, perhaps for the benefit of any extremely short sighted viewers who cannot see the footage of Jade with his wife and two kids, skiing in the snow. If the producers don't get Jade to record the audio description for the series, they're missing a trick.

Next time we get to meet the newly created boy supergroup, which is composed of every man who performed on Saturday morning telly while wearing a backwards cap, between 1994 and 1998. And we find out exactly why Eternal hate Louise Redknapp. I suspect it has something to do with not being allowed to use her Thomas Cook discount. I can't wait.

Follow Daisy Buchanan on Twitter @Notrollergirl

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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